Find Your Party Zen at Botanica of Wichita!

Do you have your tickets yet to one of Wichita's best party events? If you don't have your ticket to Zen, hurry and snag one before they are all gone! Every year, Botanica of Wichita puts on a fabulous Alfresco Event and this year is going to be the best yet...I can say that because I'm on the planning committee and know all the details! What makes this year's party a good one?

1. The Chinese Garden of Friendship is OPEN! The reason Botanica switched the Alfresco Event over to an Asian theme last year was to incorporate this beautiful addition and this year's party guests will walk through the Chinese Garden to enter the soiree. You will be greeted with champagne and h'ordeuvres to enjoy while you fall into a party zen state of mind for the rest of the evening!

Photo via Botanica of Wichita

2. Food - always a major staple to any party! Party guests will enjoy delicious Asian cuisine, which includes: beef rollups, spring rolls, Asian salad, personalized hibachi dinner, potstickers, satay, Korean BBQ sliders, fried rice and crab rangoon. Plus, they are bringing in Wasabi to serve their specialty sushi and there will be delicious desserts available. For after hours, pizza of course! Seriously...come hungry.

3. Drink - two words, full bar.

4. Entertainment - Any good party has some form of entertainment. A great party has live entertainment! The St. Anthony's Lion Dancers will be performing again this year and they definitely add an Asian flair to the evening. After their performance, Annie Up! will take the stage to rock us late into the night.

5. Last, but definitely not least, your ticket purchase supports an amazing Wichita organization. Botanica Gardens is an important part of our community and such a gorgeous place to spend the day. This event is a great fundraiser for them and a way for them to thank you for all the support and contributions over the years. The event planners and Zen committee members worked hard (mainly the fabulous event planners!) to make this a fun filled, special evening for all in attendance and you won't be disappointed!

Come spend the evening checking out the gorgeous gardens, eating to your heart's desire and dancing the night away! To purchase your tickets, click here or reach out to me and I can help you. I have been going for a few years now and I promise you will have an amazing evening!

Lots of Love,

Home Studio Reveal

Over the past couple months, Love of Character has been busy busy with orders and I've been working in a crammed space, mainly on the floor. Made for filling orders a cluster. Well last weekend, my mother came over and we got to work on organizing my space! Dustin and I decided it would make the most sense to convert the original guestroom to a work space, and move the guestroom to the smaller room...sorry guests! At least that way, our guests still have a space, and I promise to make it pretty for you. I will admit to you all that I had a couple meltdown moments. One because I felt like a hot disorganized mess; two, because I was sad that all of the hard work we put into the guestroom and office was short lived. I needed to move on, however, and do what was best for the business (and our sanity).

This room is the perfect space for my at home studio! The amount of light alone makes it a brighter place to work. With the bed out of the room, we were able to put my standing work desk in the middle of the room. Makes it much more useful than when it was against the wall. We also had more room to organize my products, shipping supplies and tools. Check it out for yourself...

Scored this adorable yellow stool at TJ Maxx today for $30! It is a smidge high, but good for breaks.

Work table from Overstock.com - works great, but when we were moving it around, it was quite flimsy (aka put it in place and don't move it!) I also had Dustin and my father-in-law build wooden boxes to prop it up to a standing level. Without, it was a normal desk height.

Love having my ribbons on the desk where I can easily pull from. I ordered this holder from Amazon and it is meant to go on the wall, but works fine on a desk. I will say, the bars are not far apart enough to hold two rows of ribbon, but it does work great for holding washi tapes.

The work station I purchased comes with nice built in shelves - perfect for holding pretty legal pads!

With the great built ins we have, my mom wanted to make a mail station (see center section). We also put the snacks and hair tie containers on here as well.  Works as a great storage situation.

The Rifle Paper Co. calendar adds a nice pop and I can check my shipment dates. Also, how cute does my shipping tape looked stacked up instead of in a box!

So nice having the computer and my products in the same room! Makes shipping and printing orders 100x easier. The desktop backdrop is a good reminder for myself - "You can do anything, but not everything"...important for girl bosses to realize! You can find the wallpaper here.

One of my favorite parts to the room, is the new IKEA cube shelving unit. It stores my products, keeps them organized and helps them look pretty.

Last Sunday was brutal and I could not have done it without my mother (she is a tough cookie! which was much needed). It was so worth it. I feel so happy and productive in my new space. The flow is great and everything is right there. Having my work space clear to make the boxes has been much more comfortable then scrunching up on the floor trying to pull everything together. In love and feel more like a girl boss! Now back to busting out more boxes in my beautiful home studio....

Busy working on some Tiny Boxes of Party Character for a wedding next weekend. 

Made some Little Boxes of Bachelorette Character for a Bridal Luncheon - switched a couple items and viola! Look so good on the new table.

Thanks again Mom and Dustin for the help! Also, special shout out to Dustin for finishing his Masters! So proud.

Lots of Love,

Kids' Parties Require a Mom's Table!

At the fun little tea party we had for the Wichita Mom's Blog contributors, a mom's table was a must! It was a great place to show off some of the other fun party supplies we offer. It was also a great place for a mom to sneak off and grab a sip of mimosa (literally a sip because most glasses were still full at the end). That seemed to be enough to keep these fabulous mama's going!

Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

To add a fun pop of color to the moms' champagne glasses, I added cute paper straws and the festive pom pom picks we sell. Those also worked great for fruit skewers and to stick in food that people can grab. I will give a pointer, do thicker food for sticking the picks in. I did cheese and I cut it too thin, so the picks started falling over. Cheese cubes, sliders, dumplings and other fun appetizers would work great.

Photo via me

The favorite part of the table (ok, besides the champagne), was the adorable Food Truck Street Stall. It works great for displaying food and as a centerpiece. Food trucks are so fun right now on the streets, so why not bring a mini one to your table? The Floral Fiesta Mini Canape Plates work great with it! The truck is reusable for many events and the white board stand is perfect for the menu or hashtag of the event.

Photos by Erin Bartel Photography

While shopping for the event, I found pineapples for 99 cents at the grocery store. Pineapples are obviously a hot decoration this summer and now I know why! So cheap. To add some easy pzazz to the pineapples, I used a gold food spray to shine them up. You can see them in the back corners of the table and the settle shimmer was perfect for the event. Plus, with a food safe spray, you can eat them afterwards.

Overall it was such a fun party and I definitely recommend having a mom table at any kid party. Mine was small and full of fun, all they need! It is also a great place to put things like berries, so the moms can try to control how much their children dribble on their pretty clothes. I think we actually did pretty well with our little tea partiers!

Photo via me

Make sure to stroll over to the shop to check out more supplies! We have fun cups, party hats and more!

Sometimes kids try to crash the mom table...at least he is still a little guy!
Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

Lots of Love,

Tea Party - Table Settings Fit for a Queen!

Welcome back to the tea party! Now that I've shared the invitations, I want to (excitedly) show you the fun table settings I did. The great thing about these table settings, you can get most of the items right in my shop! Plus, even better, they are mostly easy cleanup and kid friendly. That was definitely important when hosting a tea party for 13 children. Yes, you heard that right, 13! They ranged from baby to kid and they were all so adorable.

Photos by Erin Bartel Photography

When you are planning a party for children, you have to keep a few things in mind:
1. Avoid breakables
2. Easy clean-up
3. Their accessibility to the table and food

Since they were small, I decided to have the party in my sunroom with a coffee table as the tea table. It was low to the ground, so they could all easily sit or stand around during tea time. Chairs can be tricky when you have a wide age range because they can be all different sizes. With a coffee table situation, you do have to remember they can reach everything! Hence rule number one, avoid breakables! My friend Angela walked in and got mad at me because she thought I put crystal glasses out - um heck no, they were acrylic! Made me laugh.

Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

Photo via me

Photo via me

Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

I love how bright and pretty the prints are on the plates and platters from our Talking Tables party collection. For the individual settings we did a mix of the Big Tea Plates and Little Tea Plates. The patterns are dreamy. Then for the food, I used the Large Serving Plates. Seriously that's all paper! To display the French Macarons I picked up at Whole Foods, I used our adorable Truly Alice Teapot Cupcake Stands. The Blue Lace Cocktail Napkins and Pearls & Pastries Doilies were perfect for adding pops of color on top of the plain white table cloth. The Teapot Vase was charming and perfect for the center of the table! I love how it all came together.

At the party, we had the older kids help us fill drinks and play with the toddlers. I wanted them to feel special with their own "Big Kids Table" and thought it would be the perfect place to use our Truly Alice pieces.

Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

Photo by Erin Bartel Photography

Photo via me

I love how pretty it turned out! The Truly Alice Plates and Napkins make a table. The are bright and cheery and full of Wonderland character!

These tables are totally doable by you in your home with our supplies! Great plates, napkins and fun accessories like the Teapot Vase and Teacup Cupcake Stands bring everything together. Since the party was for kids, I went with acrylic glasses I scored at TJ Maxx for the drinkware, but I definitely think it could be fun to use pretty tea cups. The flatware I already owned, but find something with a pop of color that goes with the plates - The Dollar Tree has great, affordable options. Outside of supplies, food and flowers can definitely add to your table. Over the next couple posts, I will share flowers & food, favors and then I am excited to share the Mom's party table! Stay posted! Also, don't forget to enter the giveaway on Wichita Mom's Blog Facebook page and find the posting about the Tea Party:

Lots of Love,

Tea Party for the Wichita Mom's Blog & Giveaway Details!

A couple weekends ago, Love of Character hosted a fun little tea party for the amazing mom contributors over at Wichita Mom's Blog. I figured it would be a great way to show off some of our fun party supplies, as well as give some fabulous moms a fun activity to do on a Saturday morning. Boy did they show up! These amazing moms had their kids dressed ready for a fancy tea and teddy bears in tow. "Will work for food" was a perfect motto for these kids and their modeling job. They looked perfect and made for perfect tea partier models!

Over the course of the next week, I'll give you a breakdown of the party and how you can throw your own adorable tea party! For starters, you should go read the beautifully written blog post the Wichita Mom's blog did on the party: Beauty in the Details. I was so happy to give them a wonderful party and it always feels so good to hear that your guests had a good time.

Here is a picture collage sneak peek to get the week started. The wonderful photographer, Erin Bartel, was the photographer for the event and she did a beautiful job capturing the pretty things and then the kids enjoying the pretty things. Luckily the sunroom has doors that close, so she could have some time to snap quick table setting pictures.

Every party starts with an invitation, so I'm going to kick off this party series with the invite details. As you probably know from my past posts, I am a fan of giving a good party first impression with an invite. If you have the time, energy and money, snail mail invites area always fun to send and receive. If you are on a quicker timeline and/or need to save some money for the party, evites also work great. There are lots of great resources out there to use that are free or minimal cost. Paperless Post is a personal favorite of mine because I love their designs.

For this event, I wanted the guests to get the full effect, so I sent out paper invites. I skimmed through Pinterest and saw some fun ideas. The tea bag idea seemed perfect and doable, so I decided to go that route.

I played with colors and the wording, printed at home and then the hard part of cutting came along. Definitely make sure to use a slicer or ruler to help with your angles. I then hole punched the top, used some twine and attached a square with the logos on either side. Takes some patience, but what doesn't!

To add the final touches to the invitations, I put them in pink envelopes and wrote the addresses fancy and big. Wanted the moms to be excited to open up the pink envelope in their mailbox! For the stamps, I didn't want to settle on the flag stamps I kept getting stuck with, so I headed to the actual post office. After a little pre-online research (yes, I do postage research), I decided on some vintage roses and fell in love with the extra postage tea pots. I decided the extra 5 cents an invite would be worth putting a tea pot on a tea party invite!

Now that you've been "invited" to a week of party details, I can't wait to share the rest with you! In the mean time, scroll on over to the Wichita Mom's Blog Facebook page to enter our giveaway! That's right, Love of Character is giving away some supplies to help you throw your very own tea party (or brunch or soiree)! Here are the goodies you could win:

Pack of Floral Serving Platters:

 Lampshade Bunting - my favorite decoration for any party or room!

 Back of pretty Blue Cocktail Napkins:

 Little Tea Plates - Pack of 12:

Giveaway ends this Friday, so get over there and follow the instructions! While you are at it, make sure you are following us on Instagram @loveofcharacter.

Can't wait to keep sharing details with you all! Make sure to keep checking back.

Lots of Love,